


Wrong Man Dies

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Historical AU, I'm so sorry, World War 1, hobbes can't write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-03
Updated: 2012-07-03
Packaged: 2017-11-09 03:01:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/450528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is dying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wrong Man Dies

**Author's Note:**

> World War 1 fic written for Party When Dead. Apologies for any historical inaccuracies. It was written to Wishbone by Richard Siken.

John is on the floor, with blood pouring from his leg.

“You saved my life.” Sherlock is saying, still saying, and the words are blurred. “I owe you everything”

John is trying to disagree, trying to tell him that he’s wrong, that John is not a hero. This is war, and Sherlock is needed more, and John less. So John will die, will die and take his story with him. 

Sherlock is relentless, will not stop talking, just keeps on speaking, talking.

“Your shoes are filling with your own goddamned blood, you must want something, just tell me, I can get it, oh please John, please.”

John can’t look at him, can’t speak, is simply bleeding.

He want’s Sherlock to shut up. He wants to not talk, because he believes it, and he loves it.

But John is always saving Sherlock, and Sherlock is always owing John, and he never settles the debt.

Sherlock doesn’t mean it, and it makes John feel ashamed that he still allows it to go on. He wants one thing, and he can’t say it. He’s bleeding, and he needs bandages, he’s not just making conversation. 

It’s warfare, there will be death. There will be a graveyard where a trench used to be. The wrong man dies, it’s always that way, and in this case it’s John.

The army tries until they get it right, but every loss can be turned around, can be made a win to tell the public. They never quit, and this is another victory they will get, a victory that Sherlock will share.

John looks up at him, and this last scene of his, is the one thing he can call his own. This scene, that will either turn Sherlock mad, or kill him. John will be his slaughterhouse, killing floor. John could be his morgue, where he will lie forevermore.

All the same, there is a bullet lodged in John’s hip and without aid he shan’t live. It’s no different, he still can’t make Sherlock love him, still holds him by his hair, and this final scene feels perfect. It feels natural, as if this bullet, this bullet meant for Sherlock has been waiting for John. It feels like it’s been there all along, sitting inside John.

Do you want it, John thinks, can’t say because he is filled with blood. Sherlock doesn’t want anything John has. He won’t wrestle it out of him, won’t fight it like he means it. 

John knows that if Sherlock love him, it’s not in a way he could ever understand.

He wonders if Sherlock knows how it ends, can feel luck in his head. He wonders if Sherlock could take him home. John wonders if Sherlock even wants to go home.

There is a bottle of whiskey back at camp. Sherlock will be given it, to help with mourning. They had been close. There is a dead man at Sherlock’s feet, who happens to be John. He is staring up at Sherlock because Sherlock is something interesting, there is something hollow in the ways his eyes glisten. Crocodile tear, John thinks. How could they be real.

This is where the evening splits in half, where Sherlock has to choose. Vengeance or death, a mad fool’s ambition, or a dead fool’s love. It’s a wish, and John won’t be there for the choice. He closes his eyes.


End file.
